JEFFERSON COUNTY, AL – A middle school assistant principal in Alabama is among four individuals apprehended in relation to a triple homicide that occurred in Georgia nearly a decade ago. Keante Harris, 45, was taken into custody without resistance on three charges of malice murder, according to the Clayton County Police Department. The murders took place in Union City, Georgia, in January 2013.
Harris, who works at McAdory Middle School in Jefferson County, Alabama, has been put on administrative leave following his arrest. The case began to unravel 11 years ago when a Union City Police patrol discovered a deserted 2010 Dodge Charger near Interstate 85. Inside the vehicle, officers discovered three deceased individuals.
Authorities determined that the three victims had been subjected to torture and murder in Clayton County before their bodies were discarded in Fulton County. The victims were identified as Quinones King, 33, Rodney Cottrell, 43, and Cheryl Colquitt-Thompson, 32. According to the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, King and Cottrell were discovered asphyxiated in the back seat of the Dodge Charger, while Colquitt-Thompson was found strangled in the trunk.
The victims were reportedly lured to a house on Magnolia Drive in Jonesboro, Georgia, where they were forced inside at gunpoint. They were then transported to Fulton County in the Dodge Charger, where their bodies were abandoned. Alongside Harris, three other men, Kevin Harris, Kenneth Thompson, and Darrell Harris, were arrested without incident and charged with three counts of malice murder each.
The Jefferson County School District confirmed that they were aware of Harris’s arrest and that he has been placed on administrative leave. The relationship between the three Harris men arrested remains unclear.